


Timing

by MissJeeves



Series: Timely [3]
Category: Justified
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Anal Sex, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Harm to Children, M/M, Oral Sex, Season/Series 02, Sex for Favors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-03
Updated: 2014-04-03
Packaged: 2018-01-17 23:46:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1407082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissJeeves/pseuds/MissJeeves
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raylan tries to get someone else out of Harlan.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Timing

Nineteen people died in Kentucky the day Raylan Givens showed up at Tim’s apartment to confess to murder. Four of them were shot to death. Tim calls local law enforcement about each incident, finds out three of those cases have arrests or probable suspects. The fourth was actually a federal fugitive whose file landed on Tim’s desk the other day. Evidently, he didn’t live long after the US Marshals reminded the community he was a sex offender.

He doesn’t know who Raylan killed. Raylan wouldn’t tell him, and at first he was too devastated for Tim to push. Tim had decided to wait, to let Raylan calm down. The next morning, he could get it out of him and see what had to happen next.

But there was no next morning, because Raylan rolled out of Tim’s bed in the dead of night and vanished.

Tim half can’t believe that he slept through it. He doesn’t sleep through anything. Raylan’s not that stealthy; Tim was just too used to him being there. Raylan knows Tim wakes up “before the asscrack of dawn,” as Raylan likes to call it, and he managed to leave before then.

Technically, Raylan doesn’t vanish. He just goes back to Boyd’s brothel lair. But he doesn’t come out of his trailer when Tim shows up.

Tim can only bang on the door for so long, before he draws the attention of the girls, their clients, and the bouncers. That’s the last thing he needs.

Pissed, Tim heads back towards his car. On the way, he’s intercepted by one of the working girls, a ditzy brunette.

“He ain’t working,” she says. “But I am. I’m Ellie May.”

“No thanks,” Tim says, even when she pushes her cleavage up at him with her elbows.

“I’ll do it like he does,” she says, earnestly. “And I’m cheaper.”

And that actually makes Tim madder, not at her, not necessarily even at Raylan. He hates that Raylan lives here, in this world.

“I’ll give you 20 bucks to pass him on a message,” he tells her.

That’s obviously worth a number of sex acts, because her eyes go wide with excitement and she nods.

“Tell him ‘Come back,’ okay?” Tim says. “That’s it. Just ‘Come back.’ He’ll understand.”

Ellie May nods, accepting the cash and shoving it down her bra.

“Want a blow job?” she asks, “On the house?”

~

Raylan doesn’t come back. Tim resorts to checking the surveillance photos, courtesy some other federal agencies, to make sure he’s okay.

In the pictures, Raylan’s his usual self, a tall and lean inconspicuous presence in the background at Audrey’s while various nefarious, illegal things happen in the foreground. He looks fine, or at least unhurt. There are a few shots of him nuzzling up against a male patron, and Tim feels white hot rage.

There’s also a series of pictures of Raylan playing cards with a clearly underage teenage girl, whose face the FBI photographer never managed to catch. In comparison to everything else happening at Boyd’s properties, these are notable in their seeming innocence. Tim’s FBI friend says they were hoping to nail Crowder on underage prostitution, but the kid isn’t on the menu. Whoever she is, she hangs out mostly with Raylan. The FBI correctly assumes that Harlan’s only gay prostitute isn’t a particular threat to her. If anything, she’s a bad influence. There are some shots of them smoking pot outside Raylan’s trailer, and Tim’s friend says she’s the one that brings the bud. Tim likes these pictures better. He’s perfectly willing to pretend Raylan’s day job is babysitting a delinquent pot head.

Tim peruses missing persons’ cases, too. He guesses it’s not unlikely that Boyd disposed of whoever Raylan killed, that the victim is decomposing in some out of the way holler or abandoned mine.

Problem is, he has no idea what happened.

In his imagination, a client got rough with Raylan and things got out of hand. It was self-defense, except that it happened in a brothel and was followed by immediate evidence tampering.

Raylan’s implied, quite often, that men are allowed to get rough with him and resistance only earns him trouble from them _and_ Boyd. He mentioned it in an effort to reassure Tim, that he’s so used to it he’d know how to stay safe if Godzilla came in cranky and wanted an hour. It didn’t reassure Tim then, and now it just baffles him. Raylan doesn’t carry. He knows how Boyd controls his empire.

And yet, he killed someone and locked himself to Boyd Crowder, and Harlan, forever.

This is a breakup, of sorts, and it hurts terribly. More than Tim will ever tell anyone. He misses Raylan. He misses their amazing sex. He even misses the man’s terminal case of being an asshole. The apartment feels quiet and empty without Raylan there to make cutting remarks about Tim’s taste in everything.

The only thoughts of Raylan Tim decides to allow himself are when he asks to be included among the other recipients of the FBI surveillance photos. This is shared professional and personal interest. Besides, the day Boyd goes down, Raylan will go with him. Tim might not be on film, but that’s all he has going for him.

In his heart, he doesn’t think Raylan would divulge their relationship. But he can’t ask, of course, because Raylan won’t talk to him anymore. So the silent pictures are all he has.

Tim tries to make his life busy, so he doesn’t have time for the man who isn’t coming around anymore. At first, this entails a lot of drinking. A lot of drinking and dwelling on the past. And not the past with Raylan. They didn’t do dumb shit together. They didn’t even get sloppy drunk, very often. Aside from the part where he was fucking Boyd Crowder’s prostitute, their relationship was actually pretty quiet and mundane.

They definitely weren’t in Afghanistan taking headshots together, which is what fills Tim’s mind when he refuses to think about Raylan.

Tim feels empty and strange, but his old friend alcohol just makes him messy and self-destructive .

He starts going to meetings, again. They helped when he’d just gotten back from Afghanistan and been in a stupid mental place. It gives him something to do, and it definitely clarifies how he’s replaced the Raylan-sized hole in his life with being a drunk, shitty person.

On top of the meetings, Tim piles a new gym membership, and volunteering with the various charitable agencies that need youngish men willing to get dirty. He doesn’t stay home, reading the books Raylan hated. He doesn’t get shitfaced. And he gets dirty outdoors time without having to shoot any Taliban.

His schedule is probably a little too full. He’d take an underwater basketweaving class if it’d keep him from being home alone, and at some point a social worker at an underprivileged youth event thing tricks him into taking a foster parent seminar course.

Tim only takes the first half. It’s a little too much like work in that it puts him in contact with kids of people making terrible life choices. Also, he’s gay and in Kentucky, so it seems very pointless.

If he’s that lonely at home, which he undeniably is, he’ll get a pet.

Tim picks up a young tabby kitten from the shelter. She’s fun to have around and makes him spend more time at home. She also shreds the shit out of his collection of long-distance photos of Raylan, and he accepts the commentary as criticism.

~

The only thing that changes for Raylan in the aftermath of shooting James Earl Dean is Tim, in that Tim is gone.

Technically, it was Raylan that ended it. When he accidentally thinks about Tim, he feels more than vaguely cowardly about the way he did it. Hiding from Tim in Ellie May’s trailer while the man knocked on his trailer was not among Raylan’s finest moments.

But, there was nothing to say. All the things Raylan thought about telling Tim before he slipped out of the darkened apartment ended up cruel and empty, amounting to, “Goodbye, and thanks for all the orgasms.”

Cleanly cut ties are for the best, for both of them.

Confessing murder to a federal officer is one of the dumbest things Raylan’s ever done. It put Tim in a terrible position, and Raylan in a not much better one. Tim has to know this. He’s not a dirty cop, and Raylan doesn’t want to watch him contort himself trying to stay that way. Raylan also doesn’t want to go to prison. Whatever Tim’s plan was to get him into WitSec, it’s out of his grasp now.

That’s all they have to talk about, and it is all kinds of pointless and painful.

Not seeing Tim anymore is also painful. He can’t decide if getting that attached to a lawman is dumber than the part where he told the lawman about killing a guy. It’s like a tossup of stupid.

Raylan discovers how much time he was spending with Tim, and it’s way more than he thought. He’s a little surprised Boyd let him vanish, unexplained, so often. Being stuck in Harlan all the time is fucking depressing. It was depressing before he met Tim, it’s just worse now.

His trailer, a space where Raylan’s always felt centered and in control, seems small and shitty in comparison to Tim’s place. Which of course it always was, but it feels different now.

The best course of action is to forget about Tim. Raylan knows this, but it’s easier said than done. There’s not much else in his life to focus on. It’s not like it takes much mental effort to be the best whore he can be. In fact, it goes better when he doesn’t think about it.

Very occasionally, Raylan cruises by Tim’s apartment if he’s in Lexington. He has a regular arrangement with a local politican, so he has a non-Tim reason to be there. The windows in Tim’s apartment are dark, almost every time Raylan drives by. Once, he sees him in the parking lot with a young, attractive black woman. Raylan doesn’t let himself feel jealously. He hopes Tim is doing okay.

Boyd never mentions his new collateral over Raylan. Of course, he doesn’t have to. They both know he has it.

There’s also a more constant reminder of the incident, now. Loretta McCready, the girl Raylan pulled out of Dean’s trunk, visits Audrey’s often.

She comes along with Coover Bennett, who has a standing appointment with Ellie May. He leaves Loretta at the bar with her homework. In all the years Raylan’s been here and the incredibly criminal and violent things that have happened, this might be the most outrageously inappropriate.

He immediately mentions it to Ava, who occasionally has moments of lucidity when she’s outside of Boyd’s presence.

But not on this. “Coover spends a lot of money here,” she says. “Don’t be bitchy ‘cause it’s not on you.”

Raylan glares at her, but backs off. He considers Coover’s firm heterosexuality evidence that God occasionally grant prayers from a Givens, all evidence to the contrary.

Loretta doesn’t seem to notice she’s doing her homework in a den of iniquity. Or it doesn’t bother her.

She’s excited to see Raylan, for obvious reasons. Raylan finds he doesn’t have any hostility towards her. He’s still glad he got her out of that trunk.

“You work here?” Loretta asks, when he ambles over to say hello.

Raylan nods, doesn’t elaborate on that. “How are you doing?” he asks.

“I’m okay,” she says. “I’m staying with the Bennetts while my daddy is working out of state.”

Her daddy is dead. That, Raylan knows. And he’s not pleased he got her out of the pervert’s trunk so she could end up in Bennett hands.

Even though it’s none of his business, he can’t help asking. “Where’s your mom at?”

“She’s dead of cancer,” Loretta answers, without hesitation. “Year and a half, now.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Raylan says, frowning. He didn’t realize Mags was orphaning this girl. Mags, though, surely did. “Bennetts treating you okay?” he asks.

Loretta nods. “Mags is,” she says. “Dickie and Coover don’t like me much, but that’s okay. My dad will be back soon.”

Out the back window, Raylan sees Coover bumbling out of Ellie May’s trailer and knows he should vanish. Coover doesn’t hate him as much as Dickie does – because Coover is much dumber – but he doesn’t want any aggression misdirected at Loretta.

“You let me know if they don’t treat you right,” he tells her.

Loretta shrugs, then nods. “Okay.”

Raylan ends up sitting with Loretta every time Coover has his datenights with Ellie May. If she’s going to be in Audrey’s, he’s going to keep an eye on her.

Fairly quickly, Loretta figures out what he does for work. It’s probably a process of elimination.

“I thought you were a bartender,” she says, one day.

“Nope,” Raylan says. She just saw him get chased out of there, as often happens because the top shelf stuff tends to get relocated to his trailer. “I work outback,” he tells her.

He’s not going to lie and her hero worship, low key as it is, has become a little tiresome.

“With the girls,” she says.

“With the girls,” he confirms, and looks at her for the inevitable sneer.

“I didn’t know men could do that,” she says, without judgment.

“Not a sex-restricted career,” he tells her, and she makes a face at his word choice. “Gender restricted,” he corrects, “but I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“I’m gonna be a reefer farmer,” she says, “like my daddy.”

“I don’t know that I recommend that, either,” he says.

“I haven’t heard from him lately,” Loretta mutters. She looks down, frowning.

Awkwardly, Raylan shuffles their cards and starts dealing. From what he’s heard via Ellie May’s enormous mouth and lack of any kind of filter, Mags treats Loretta like the daughter she never had. He’s hesitant to say the kid’s in any immediate danger, long as the ‘daddy’s out of town’ story sticks.

Next week, though, he accidentally rocks the boat so hard it capsizes. It’s Loretta’s fault, because she brings some powerful weed and he promptly confiscates it, on account of her being fourteen. She’s lamenting about having to live with the Bennetts, about the Bennett boys being jealous dicks when she doesn’t even want to be there. Raylan doesn’t mean to spill the beans, he just wants her to behave.

“Mags knew your daddy called the feds on the pervert,” he says, not looking up from restacking their dominoes.

Loretta stares at him. “What?”

“What are the rules about going outside the family?” he asks.

“Don’t,” she says. “But he was a pervert.”

“Yeah,” Raylan says. “I kind of think she just wanted what he had.”

“My daddy don’t have nothing,” she begins, trailing off.

“If Mags always wanted a daughter,” he tells her, “You best be the daughter she always wanted, lest you also end up working out of town.”

He has to do the avoiding-Coover-and-his-giant-fists dance, right after he says that. But the stricken look on Loretta’s face as she leaves penetrates his stoned mind enough for him to realize that, in fact, he may not have helped the situation at all.

~

Loretta blows everything to shit the following week. Raylan tries not to be angry. Personally, if someone murdered Arlo, he’d buy them dinner and offer an assortment of free sex acts. He knows other people are allowed to love their fathers.

In her defense, Loretta goes for stealthy. She pays Ellie May to give Coover a joint rolled with formaldehyde and then steal his watch after he passes out.

The watch belonged to her father. It just confirms what Raylan already told her. He gets to see her face, crestfallen.

Unfortunately, Loretta seriously underestimates Coover’s drug tolerance.

All hell breaks loose after that. Coover’s a moron, but he’s smart enough to figure out what she’s done. And his solution, of course, is to try to kill her.

Ellie May shrieks a warning, fleeing her trailer for the safety of Audrey’s bouncers. Coover follows her, finds Loretta, the dead dad watch, and Raylan.

Raylan tries to stay out of it. He really does. He looks for the bouncers, who are hesitant to lay a hand on a Bennett, and trying to shepherd a dozen alarmed hookers and their drunken johns.

Coover makes a grab for Loretta. She ducks his first hand, but the second closes around her throat and drags her in. Her scream is cut short, because Coover is squeezing.

Raylan can’t watch this. He doesn’t have a gun and Coover is a big motherfucker.

“Let her go,” he tries.

Coover shoves him with one big hand, the other still choking the life out of Loretta.

“Okay, then,” Raylan says. He grabs a bar stool and swings it as hard as he can at Coover’s head. Coover stumbles backwards, releasing Loretta. Raylan pulls her away, then swings again with bar stool, and again, until Coover tumbles down, crashing through a table.

He makes a moaning sound on the floor, which means he’s still alive. Raylan could hit him again, but he’s in enough trouble as it.

Raylan grabs the gasping Loretta by the arm, forcefully pulls her along with him as he goes for the exit and makes a beeline for his car. In the chaos, none of Boyd’s thugs stop him, though he’s definitely been seen.

He all but shoves Loretta into the passenger seat, guns the engine, and speeds out of Harlan.

Loretta spends the first half hour sobbing hysterically against the window. It sounds like the crying is interfering with her breathing more than any damage Coover may have inflicted, which is a relief. The last thing Raylan wants is to explain how he totally didn’t do this to an ER doctor.

“You okay?” he asks, when the outright sobbing has mostly subsided.

She makes a choking noise that might pass as the affirmative. “Where are we going?” she asks, voice thick.

“Lexington,” he says. “You need to not be in Harlan, anymore.”

That’s not exactly something she can argue about.

“Can I hire you?” she asks, later in the ride, when she’s calmed down some.

Raylan looks at her sharply. “Excuse me?” he says.

“Not for sex,” she says, dismissively. “I want you to kill someone for me.”

“No,” he says, instantly. “You’d have a better chance with sex, that’s how much no.”

“You killed the pervert.”

“That already got me in deep shit,” he says. “And he wasn’t a Bennett.”

“You should have hit him again,” she mutters.

“You may be right,” he agrees. Right now he’s hoping that leaving Coover alive gets him mercy from someone. He’s not sure who.

“I’ll find someone else,” she says, sniffling, “if you won’t do it.”

“Not in Harlan, you won’t,” he replies. “No one will take on Mags.”

Loretta falls silent, though a quick glance over assures him she’s feeling no less homicidal.

“I’m taking you to a lawman in Lexington,” he says, trying to change the subject. “He’ll take care of you, keep the Bennetts away.”

“He your boyfriend?” Loretta asks, after a moment. She doesn’t say it with malice.

“I’d actually prefer he not know I drove you,” Raylan says. “Better that way.”

They drive the rest of the way in relative silence. He can feel his phone, vibrating incessantly in his jeans. Loretta holds her father’s watch and tries not to cry anymore.

Raylan scrawls a note for Tim, explaining Loretta’s situation as obliquely as possible. She can’t go back to Harlan, or the Bennetts. That’s basically it. He assures Loretta that Tim is Officer Friendly and will do right by her.

Loretta clings to him as he tries to march her to Tim’s door.

“Don’t leave,” she says, sounding about as vulnerable as he’s ever heard, including the time he pulled her out of the pervert’s car.

“You’ll be fine,” he says. “Tim is a good guy, I promise.”

“Please,” Loretta says, and she’s starting to cry again.

Raylan scopes out the distance between the door and the closest stairwell. Tim will never see him.

He gives the door three solid thumps, then smacks the bell for good measure. Raylan does have to pry Loretta’s hands off his arm, before he goes sprinting down the hallway to the stairwell door. Fortunately, Loretta stays where she’s standing.

~

Tim answers the door in time to see Raylan’s hat vanishing into the emergency exit stairwell, over the shoulder of the weeping teenage girl standing on his welcome mat.

He barely glances at her – long enough to ascertain that she is the kid in the surveillance photos from Audrey’s – before taking off down the hall after Raylan. He’s aware he’s chasing a male hooker through his apartment complex in only his robe and boxers, but he’s already half way down the stairs.

The stairwell is too dim to see much, but he knows he’s got Raylan cornered.

“This is the emergency exit,” he yells in to the darkness. “You can’t get out this way without waking up the entire building.” He pauses, then adds a deserved, “You stupid asshole.”

After a moment, he hears Raylan’s boots shuffling forward, ‘til the man’s standing at the base of the stairs, illuminated by the lone light bulb. He looks a little like the cat that just landed on his head for the first time, but he sounds the same.

“You grab Loretta?” he asks.

“Who?” Tim begins.

“Shit,” Raylan says, like he didn’t just try to ding dong ditch Tim. “Don’t leave her alone,” he says, climbing the stairs towards Tim.

Confused as all hell, Tim turns around, making sure he hears Raylan walking behind him.

Loretta has sunk to a squat against the wall outside Tim’s door. She didn’t go inside, or leave. But she did grab Shredder, who tried to make a break for it.

“Thanks,” Tim says, scruffing the cat and tossing her back inside. “Come on in.”

“That was a brilliant getaway,” she says to Raylan. “Really.”

Raylan scowls and grunts at her. “Get inside,” he orders.

Introductions are short.

“Tim Gutterson, U.S. Marshal, Loretta McCready, endangered minor,” Raylan says, without elaboration.

Loretta looks like someone tried to choke her. The beginnings of a big nasty bruise cover most of her neck, and her neckline is torn. Her eyes are red-rimmed, but she’s not crying anymore. Now, she’s just cranky.

“You need a doctor,” he says, instantly.

“I do not,” she says.

He settles for putting her on the couch and giving her a glass of water. Hardly medical attention, but other than snuffle breathing, she seems okay.

“Raylan, join me in the kitchen,” Tim orders. He pulls his robe shut and tries to take control of the situation.

The kitchen is only a few feet away, but whatever.

“Who’s the cat?” Loretta asks, as Shredder jumps up next to her.

“Shredder,” Tim says, “she likes belly rubs.”

“You got a cat,” Raylan says, mildly, as they round the corner.

“You got a kid,” Tim retorts. “What the hell, Raylan?”

“I didn’t know you liked cats.”

“I missed having an aloof, selfish as fuck presence in my life,” Tim says, meanly. “But at least she’s spayed.”

As usual, Raylan has no feelings to hurt. He just looks bored. “You done?”

“No.” And then Tim shoves Raylan up against the kitchen cabinets where he keeps the ramen and Chef Boyardee, and kisses him hard.

Raylan tenses like he’s expecting an assault, but immediately relaxes and opens his mouth, kissing back. Tim only releases him when they both have to breathe.

“Huh,” Raylan says.

Tim backs off, because he really has to talk to Raylan and if he stands too close, he’s just going to do that again.

Raylan looks a little stunned. He wanders a few steps away, fingers idly tracing the back of Tim’s kitchen chairs.

“And here I thought I was going to have to beat a man with a chair for a second time tonight,” Raylan says, folding his lips over. His face looks a bit mauled, but Tim realizes that only Loretta has the bruises from whatever happened earlier.

“That what you did?” Tim asks. Raylan nods. “He live?”

“Most likely,” he says. “Unfortunately.”

“That’s the reason you’re playing Yocheved at my doorstep?”

Raylan squints at him, pausing. “Moses,” he finally figures out the reference. “You get religion along with the cat?”

Tim glares at him, waiting.

“She needs to stay out of Harlan,” Raylan says. “Permanently. She’s an orphan, needs a place to stay. Social services, my guess.” He takes in Tim’s unhappy expression. “I wrote a note.”

He turns around, walks back to Loretta on the couch. He’s just out of sight, but Tim can hear the exchange that ensues.

“What happened to your face?” Loretta says.

“Shut up or I will put you in a weed basket and drown you,” Raylan retorts, immediately returning to the kitchen with a folded piece of legal pad in hand.

“Weed basket,” Tim says.

“Because she’s a pothead,” Raylan offers. He hands over the note.

Tim takes it, flicks it open.

“Well, this is a novel,” Tim says, because it’s three sentences long and virtually identical to what Raylan just said. It specifically mentions a family Loretta’s not to be returned to, but that’s it.

“Sorry, no elves,” Raylan tells him, and smiles.

Tim has to do something else, or he will ravish him against the counters again.

“I’m going to call social services,” he says. “You see if anything else comes to you.”

~

Tim’s social worker friend tells him it’ll be six hours before they can even get Loretta into a group home. She strongly hints that she can fudge the paperwork, on account of that class Tim took, so that the kid can stay the night and go directly to court and an open foster placement. It’ll be better, and Tim sneaks a glance at the bedraggled figure on his couch and agrees she doesn’t need much more tonight.

He tells Loretta she’ll be staying the night, and she shrugs.

“Okay,” she says.

“They let you do that?” Raylan asks, suspiciously. He glances at the door, like he thinks someone’s coming and Tim’s lying.

“Yes,” Tim says. “Because I want state employees to discover one of Boyd Crowder’s –” He bites off the end of the sentence, looking sharply at Loretta.

“Whores,” Loretta provides. “I know what he does.”

“Well, good.” Tim doesn’t want to fight with Raylan in front of her. “You got any PJ’s or anything?” he forcibly changes the subject.

He and Raylan retreat to Tim’s bedroom to find her something to change into. Raylan casts a glance at the bed, and smiles a little. Tim controls himself, digging through his drawers for some sweats.

“I have a friend who’s a social worker, she’ll come by tomorrow morning. Said the process will be more streamlined,” Tim explains, trying to be civil. “All the group homes are closed for the night, this is better than whatever precinct they’d take her to.”

“Seems inappropriate,” Raylan says, still paranoid. “Leaving a teenage girl with a lecherous young man like yourself.”

“I took half a foster care class,” Tim snaps, “She’s going to fix the paperwork so it’s legal. No one’s coming tonight.”

Raylan does an actual doubletake. “Foster care?” he says. “You wanted kids?”

“Half a class,” Tim reminds him, “and no. I got a cat.”

He pulls out a t-shirt and a pair of sweat pants. Raylan is still staring at him curiously.

“This’ll fit,” he says. “Drop it,” he adds, forcefully.

“I would have tried harder to get you pregnant,” Raylan says, very softly. “had I known.”

Tim balls up the clothes, throws them at Raylan’s chest. Raylan catches the pile, then snags Tim’s arm. Emboldened, he pulls Tim into him for another deep, desperate kiss.

Before they end up falling on the bed, Tim extracts himself and steps away.

“Get her changed,” he orders. “And make sure you take any illegal substances off her.”

~

“You guys can have the bed,” Loretta says, when she’s wearing Tim’s clothes. She looks even more pitiful in the oversized sweats. Tim puts her old outfit in a paperbag for evidence, just in case.

Tim glares at Raylan.

“You want to knock it off, Loretta?” Raylan asks, which is not the denial Tim was hoping for.

“I’m not the one wanting to knock things,” she mutters. “You got a giant hickey on your face.”

“Maybe I hit him,” Tim says. It has a certain appeal.

“You’ll want to be between her and the door,” Raylan tells him, like Tim’s every day job doesn’t entail securing people who want to run away from him.

“You want to be the US Marshal here?” Tim asks Raylan.

Raylan scowls at him, and then Loretta pipes up. “Wouldn’t that make you the whore?”

That makes Raylan bite back a laugh, but not the smirk.

“I could also be the bedraggled urchin,” Tim says. “Go to bed. I changed the sheets. We’ll take you to social services in the morning.”

Loretta retires for the night, surprisingly obediently. She seems pleased that Shredder is going to sleep with her. And she looks exhausted.

Tim looks at the couch, then back at Raylan.

“I can feel the hospitality,” Raylan jokes. “Don’t worry, I’m outta here.”

“Excuse me?”

Raylan points at the door. “Remember what I was trying to do, earlier?”

“I do, as a matter of fact,” Tim says, frowning. “Remember how that failed? You’re coming with me and giving your statement on whoever assaulted the endangered minor.”

“You mean,” Raylan says, dropping into a sprawl on the couch – which means he’s at least open to talking about not leaving – and looking up at Tim. “All those witnesses who are going to tell you how I assaulted a man with a chair while Loretta was choking her own damn self?”

Tentatively, Tim sits on the far cushion. “That’s how that’s going to go?” he asks.

Raylan nods. “Pretty much. So I’d rather it not.”

Tim nods understanding.

“What’s going to happen when you go back?” he asks.

“Excellent question,” Raylan says, shrugging. He reaches into his jeans’ pocket and pulls out a smartphone. “Worse things if I don’t go back. I have to explain myself.”

“You can do that here,” Tim says, trying to delay him.

Surprisingly, Raylan does. Tim keeps quiet and tries not overtly eavesdrop. But he listens while Raylan claims to be driving back from dropping Loretta off at a hospital in Lexington. Raylan’s voice stays level and calm, and he repeatedly asks whoever he’s speaking to – Boyd, presumably – to tell someone named Mags that he was saving Loretta’s life and the part with the chair was only incidental.

“I’ll be back by morning,” he says, then cuts the line.

“How’d that go?” Tim asks, a little lost.

“He’ll be calmer in the morning,” Raylan says, hopefully. Tim doesn’t think he looks too confident.

“You’ll be safe?”

“Sure,” Raylan says, smiling. Tim still doesn’t believe him. “I’m very persuasive,” he adds, and makes his sultry face. Usually, that makes Tim hard. Tonight, he’s just worried. Well, and hard.

“Oh?” he says.

Raylan reaches out and taps fingers against Tim’s knee, walking them towards his crotch.

“Your little orphan is here,” Tim reminds him.

“She’s asleep, and I’ll put my hand over your mouth,” Raylan offers.

Tim just stares at him, as Raylan tries to untangle the knot on his bathrobe.

“C’mon,” Raylan says. “Give me someone nice to remember in a few hours when –”

“You have interesting pick up lines,” Tim interrupts, realizing Raylan is clearly planning to offer sex for forgiveness from Boyd. He doesn’t think he can stand to hear that verbalized. “And by interesting, I mean awful.”

“Then why are you hard?” Raylan asks, looking accusingly at his crotch.

“Because you’re molesting me,” he says, as Raylan digs into his boxers.

“And you’re resisting?”

That’s a fair point. Tim grabs Raylan by the throat and pulls him in. If Raylan is going to fuck Crowder, then Tim is going to make love to him, first.

They have what Tim hopes is really quiet, really furtive sex on the couch. The unnatural silence makes it a little weird. And there’s no lube in the living room, so Tim has to do him dry. He knows it’s not the best sex, but it’s been so long since Raylan was here to even touch that everything feels amazing.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispers, his fingers dragging inside Raylan. There’s only so much spit can do.

Raylan ignores his concern. He crouches over Tim, holding his cock in place, and takes him inside. Tim can see his face, knows the depth of penetration is even greater in this position. He pulls Raylan in by the hair, kisses him through the initial discomfort.

“It’s fine,” Raylan says, lazily, when Tim lets him go to breathe. “I am a professional.”

Tim grips his hair harder. “Maybe you just shouldn’t talk during sex,” he says, and shoves his tongue in Raylan’s mouth before the man can say anything else stupid.

He thrusts up, feels Raylan’s moan more than he hears it. Raylan pushes down to meet him, and Tim completely forgets why they’re having a desperate, silent sex on the couch.

Later, when he discovers what Loretta was doing while he was fucking Raylan, he’ll regret that.

~

Raylan leaves again, in the middle of the night. This time, Tim’s awake to watch him go. It takes a while, because he has to disentangle from Tim and put his clothes back on. Tim knows arguing is futile. He doesn’t want ruin the afterglow, what little they have.

In the morning, Loretta is sad to see him gone. She’s quiet and awkward around Tim, bruises darkening on her throat and eyes red-rimmed from crying last night.

Tim tells her where they’re going after breakfast, gives the requisite appeal for honesty, even though it’d be ideal if she just wouldn’t mention Raylan at all.

“I’m the daughter of a reefer farmer,” she says, almost proudly. “I don’t talk to cops.”

“I’m a cop,” Tim says, tiredly. It’s made his life far too complicated.

He gives her a bowl of cereal and she eats it without complaint.

“Raylan didn’t snitch on you, you know,” she says, between bites.

“Pardon?” Tim asks, over his coffee cup.

“He just said you’re a cop and you’d shoot the Bennetts in the head if they tried to hurt me.”

Tim huffs a laugh. “Well, that’s true.”

“I wouldn’t have known anything if you hadn’t sucked his face off in front of me.”

“I did not do that,” Tim says, curtly. He didn’t. She was around the corner. And later, behind a closed door. And it wasn’t Raylan’s face Tim sucked off.

“I’m not gonna tell anybody, anyway,” she promises. “Don’t worry.”

Social services takes custody of Loretta without much fuss. He just relays the information that Raylan gave him, telling the social worker than a CI intervened when she was attacked. He expects Loretta will be tight-lipped, and he’s thankful.

Of course, it gets back to Art. He spends some time clarifying that he doesn’t actually have a CI in Crowder’s camp, just an acquaintance in Harlan who did the right thing for an innocent little kid.

“I have tried very, very hard to get him or her to be a CI,” he eventually admits, because no cop believes that last line. No one in Harlan gets the benefit of the doubt.

Tim takes the time to do a little research on the family Loretta is not to be returned to under any circumstances. He figures he can try to find out what happened to her and why Raylan was involved, at least.

The Bennetts are Harlan’s major marijuana distributors, which the federal government knows. It’s a family headed by a woman, oddly enough, who has a tendency to disappear folks. Not something they can pin on her, it’s just a known fact. One of her sons is, of course, a police chief. Tim thinks again how much he hates Harlan and how much he wishes Raylan wasn’t there.

~

“Ava said I should take a horsewhip to you,” Boyd says, softly.

He’s using his most menacing whisper, but Raylan actually finds it somewhat reassuring. He’s probably not getting beaten. Boyd’s the most violent when he’s yelling. And there’s no tension coiled in his body. Raylan knows what that looks like. After all these years, he’s a pretty good judge of when Boyd is going to lash out and just how much it’s going to hurt.

“Ava wanted a teenage girl strangled to death in her place of business?” Raylan asks, levelly.

Boyd scowls at him. They’re seated in the backroom of the bar, alone. Raylan got dragged in there by Devil and babysat for two hours before Boyd deigned to show. Fortunately, Jimmy arrived not too long after, or Raylan might have also been explaining why he bit Devil’s dick off. Boyd dismissed both of them, which is another sign everything’s going to be okay, because there’s no one to hold Raylan down.

“That is not your decision to make,” Boyd says, harshly. “There’s been worse. It ain’t got out.”

“That’d be because Ellie Mae didn’t see it,” Raylan replies. “You know I’m right and Ava knows I’m right.”

“I can spare a whore _or two_ ,” Boyd says, with deadly intent. “Rather than start a war with the Bennetts.”

He’s gone silent and rigid, suddenly enough that Raylan is less sure of his own safety. But there’s nothing to be done about it, now.

“Could have killed him,” Raylan defends himself. “Didn’t.” He looks into Boyd’s dark eyes. “Wanted to.”

“Oh, Raylan,” Boyd says, laughing. “You’re the purest whore in all of Harlan, don’t admit to homicidal intent now. It’ll ruin your image.”

That’s a step in the right direction. “What I hear, Mags likes the girl better than Coover,” he continues. “You let her die, there’d be a problem.”

Boyd grins at him. “And that’s the only reason I ain’t stripping the skin off your back like Ava wanted.”

Raylan waits, not sure he’s in the clear.

“Guess that’s a reason I keep you around,” Boyd continues, “aside from your usefulness as a semen receptacle.”

As he speaks, Boyd’s legs swing open and he leans back almost imperceptibly as he sets his boots wider on the floor.

This, Raylan expected. And more. He’s lubed and stretched himself, so Boyd will really have to work to hurt him.

All the same…

“You got that horsewhip around here, somewhere?” he asks, flatly.

Boyd blinks at him, coldly.

“You’d be as useful,” Boyd says, “and blessedly difficult to understand without teeth.”

Raylan stands, slinks across the small space separating them, and drops to his knees in front of Boyd. He undoes Boyd’s belt, opens the fly on Boyd’s jeans. Normally, he’d pull the man’s pants down at least past his hips, but Boyd doesn’t lift up. Raylan’s a little confused, since this makes it much harder for Raylan to deepthroat him, and even harder for Boyd to choke him.

If Boyd’s not willing to take his pants off, it’s unlikely Raylan’s going to get rough fucked on the floor like he planned for.

Boyd puts his hands in Raylan’s hair and pulls him in.

“Make it quick,” he orders. “Ava’s waiting.”

Raylan swallows Boyd and the chance that he might say aloud how dumb it is Ava wants him beaten but is unintentionally saving him from having to fuck Boyd. She clearly doesn’t understand his preferences. Or she was trying to be nice, which he never assumes.

But Boyd is unexpectedly gentle, too. He doesn’t tug Raylan’s hair or cut off his breath. Raylan’s done this when Boyd is much angrier and he can tell the difference. He can’t even do it the way Boyd likes, with his pants on, but he’s not getting slapped for it.

Raylan is an expert, though, and he’s been told to be fast, so in no time at all he’s swallowing Boyd’s hot orgasm. Tonight has been far less violent than he anticipated, but he’s not going to risk it by spitting.

Boyd’s in a good mood now, petting Raylan’s hair as he tucks Boyd away and does his pants up. Raylan think he likes having him on his knees almost as much as he likes the blow job, because Boyd keeps him there for a few minutes.

“Where’d the girl go?” he asks, without the earlier anger.

“Social services picked her up from the hospital,” Raylan says. “I’d assume, unless the Bennetts got there first.” He thinks he’s a good liar, but he keeps his eyes on Boyd’s crotch all the same.

“I’d have heard,” Boyd says, shaking his head.

Raylan shrugs, lets Boyd play idly with his hair.

“Mags was pissed at Coover,” he continues. “But the Bennett boys want you dead.”

“That’s not new,” Raylan says, quietly.

“Doyle’s a cop now,” Boyd says, “that is.” He reaches down, cups Raylan’s chin and tilts his head up. “You’re going to need protection, ‘til this blows over.”

Raylan doesn’t say anything. That’s the whole reason he came here, and they both know it.

“You want Devil or Jimmy?” Boyd asks.

“Just give me a gun,” Raylan suggests.

Boyd smirks, his grip on Raylan’s face tightening to just shy of painful.

“I said I don’t want a war with the Bennetts,” he reminds him.

“Jimmy,” Raylan decides. “Devil can’t keep his hands to himself,” he tattles. Sometimes, when Boyd is feeling benevolent, he’ll enforce boundaries. Other times, he’ll shove a wad of cash down Raylan’s pants and tell him to be a good little whore.

Boyd nods. He releases Raylan and gives him a nod that means he can stand. Raylan gets off his knees as gracefully as possible and returns to his stool. His legs are stiff from holding that position for so long.

With Raylan at eyelevel, Boyd is mean again. “Maybe you should express some gratitude,” he says, after a second.

In response, Raylan moistens his lips and sets his hands on his belt buckle. “Thought Ava was waiting,” he says, plainly.

“She is,” Boyd says. He rises. “I’ll expect a fuller demonstration of your obligation in the future.”

Raylan shrugs, keeps his face deliberately neutral. Boyd’s just more encouraged when Raylan’s unenthusiastic, and he’s obviously preparing to leave, so they’ll deal with that later.

“You cooperate with Jimmy,” Boyd adds, “Or we’ll be revisiting the horsewhip option.”

~

Jimmy is a frustratingly effective bodyguard. He sticks to Raylan’s side with annoying persistence. Raylan’s sure Boyd threatened him with his own death, because Jimmy has never been this diligent about anything before. Raylan only gets to be alone in his trailer, or when he’s with a client. Otherwise, Jimmy is at his elbow.

There’s no sign of the Bennetts. Jimmy also buys from Dickie, regularly, and nothing about that business relationship changes. Except Raylan gets saddled out of sight with Devil and his unwanted overtures while the exchanges happen, which sucks.

Raylan doesn’t get a chance to contact Tim. He has to use the burner phone Tim bought him a while back, because he’s too paranoid to use the one Boyd pays for. Way too many people might be listening to that. But he can’t get it from its hiding place with Jimmy on him all the time.

It takes a couple of days, but finally Raylan distracts Jimmy with some of Loretta’s leftover pot – the potent stuff – and retrieves his burner phone from the loose ceiling tile in Audrey’s where he hides it. He can’t risk keeping it in his trailer, but he has plausible deniability that it’s some other hooker’s burner phone if it stays in Audrey’s.

“Hey,” he says, casually, when Tim answers. “How’s it going?”

Tim sputters something on the other end, clearly unappreciative of how long it took for Raylan to let him know he’s okay. “Oh good, you’re still breathing,” Tim says, with annoyance.

“Yeah,” Raylan confirms, hiding in the janitor’s closet most often used to store heroin. “How’d it go on your end?”

Tim lets out a breath. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you,” he says, still not sounding happy.

“Shit,” Raylan says. “What happened?”

“Loretta ran away from the group home,” Tim says. “She wasn’t there one day.”

“I thought keeping delinquents in was their job,” Raylan says, outraged.

“I didn’t warn them she was going to do that,” Tim retorts. “Because I didn’t know.”

“Neither did I,” Raylan says. “Well, shit.”

“You have any idea where’d she go?”

“ _Fuck_.” He has a very good idea.

“What?” Tim demands.

“The Bennetts,” Raylan says. “She’s going back to the Bennetts.”

“Thought they wanted to kill her,” Tim says.

“Yeah, but she wants to kill them, too. They offed her daddy.”

“You know, you could have mentioned this,” Tim says. “That’d have been helpful.”

“She’s just a kid,” Raylan says. “She tried to hire me to do it – which I didn’t – I thought that was the end.”

“Who else would she go to?” Tim asks. “Gimme some names.”

“I don’t know…” Raylan has another terrible idea. “Hey, Tim, you locked up your gun safe the night she spent at your place, right?”

“It’s always locked,” Tim says, instantly. “You know that.”

But he hears Tim walking across the floor and the muffled sounds of doors opening. Raylan can’t tell what’s happening, but it sounds like Tim’s searching through his things.

“What?” Raylan asks, when Tim starts cursing.

“She took my granddad’s Colt,” he says, after a second. “It was in the back of my closet in his old combo safe. Fuck, Raylan.”

“Guess she had a couple of hours,” Raylan says, realizing what Loretta was doing while he and Tim were trying to be quiet on the couch.” “It loaded?”

“Yeah.” Tim sounds epically pissed off. “Yeah, it is.”

Raylan tells him the address of Mag’s house.

“I’ll call in a BOLO,” Tim says. “But ain’t one of the Bennetts a cop?”

“Yeah,” Raylan confirms, ignoring that Tim went and researched the Bennetts. “You know, I’m closer.”

“They forgive you for the chair incident?”

“Probably not,” Raylan says. “What the hell.”

“Raylan, don’t –”

“I’ll talk to you later,” Raylan says. “If not, take care of Loretta, okay?” He cuts the call before Tim can say anything else.

“Hey, Jimmy?” He lures his stoned body guard towards the closet. Jimmy’s not the smartest guy, sober, and Raylan easily slams his head into the archway of the door. He catches the unconscious man and gently lowers him to the ground, relieving him of his pistol and cell phone as he does so.

Raylan sneaks out the back before anyone notices. He has a vague plan in mind. Loretta hopefully hasn’t made it to Harlan yet, or they’d have heard about it. But he’s not sure how far behind he is. The police Tim is sending are going to be stymied by Doyle Bennett, he’s betting. But Raylan’s thinking how he gets into Bennett territory to stop Loretta, without getting killed himself.

In the car, he calls Boyd.

“Hey,” he says when Boyd answers. “I’m starting a war with the Bennetts.”

There’s stunned silence on the other end, before: “Excuse me?”

“So don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Raylan says. “The McCready girl’s on her way to kill them, and chances are they’ll see that as your fault, as well.”

“My fault? Raylan, what the hell are you doing?”

“Well, I want to return Loretta to Lexington,” Raylan says, honestly. “But if the Bennetts are opposed to that, as I suspect…”

Boyd is shouting orders into the phone when Raylan hangs up. Then, he uses Jimmy’s phone to text Dickie and ask for a meet up.

“You ain’t Jimmy,” Dickie says, like a dumbass, when Raylan steps out of the car at their rendezvous point.

“To this day, I sometimes wonder if I hit you in the head, too?” Raylan tells him, walking up close.

“You hear my new little sister came home?” Dickie says, with a smirk. “You should come say hi,” he begins, hand creeping towards his gun.

Raylan closes the distance between them, slamming his elbow into the side of Dickie’s head and disarming him with the other hand. Dickie falls, shrieking, to the ground. Raylan resists the urge to kick him.

He points Dickie’s own gun at him.

“I would like to come say hi,” he says, politely. “Why don’t you take me home with you?”

~

Tim calls in as many law enforcement agencies as he can, and a SWAT team. He has to lie. He emphasizes the endangered minor who’s armed, but not where she got the gun. Raylan doesn’t get mentioned. Instead, Tim takes the bet that a good number of the Bennett reefer farmers are fugitives of some sort, and runs with it.

He’s going to have a lot of explaining to do when they get there, but hopefully Loretta and Raylan will both still be breathing.

Tim has no idea what Raylan’s plan is. He definitely doesn’t think Raylan recruited Boyd’s thugs to start a gun battle with the Bennetts’ thugs, but that’s what’s going on when the US Marshals and the SWAT team arrive.

The Bennetts’ men start shooting at law enforcement, too. That gives Tim just cause to shoot Doyle Bennett in the head, before he can kill Raylan. Raylan, who’s lying on the ground and bleeding from a gunshot wound.

Tim is too hyped up on adrenaline at the time, but later he has to vomit when he pictures Raylan like that.

It’s not as bad as it looks, because Raylan gets up and staggers inside the Bennetts’ house. Because Loretta’s in there, of course, trying to kill a lady.

Tim follows, but lets Raylan do the talking. He doesn’t want to shoot the little girl, but he also doesn’t want Raylan to bleed to death while they’re discussing it. From what he’s read, Mags Bennett probably deserves what Loretta wants to give her. So, he doesn’t have to care about her.

Raylan gets Loretta to give up the gun. He passes it backwards to Tim, who shoves it into his pants.

“Get her out of here,” Raylan asks.

Loretta comes willingly. Tim wants to turn her over to Rachel so he can get back in there, but she’s arresting the dozens of thugs outside. He settles for locking Loretta in a car, then runs back.

By the time he gets there, Mags Bennett is dead. Raylan has turned gray, and Tim turns right around and screams for a medic.

~

Tim never gets in trouble. Everyone forgets about Loretta, on account of the Harlan gang war they interrupted.

The Bennetts lost the war. Every one of them is dead, except for the youngest son. Mags Bennett, bizarrely, actually killed herself.

Crowder, of course, survived. And isn’t going to prison. None of his thugs will talk and they all did a great deal of weapon polishing, such that there are barely any fingerprints. No witnesses, either, since Loretta was inside trying to kill someone herself.

Loretta doesn’t mention where she got the gun, and no one tries to locate it. It’s in Tim’s locked glove box and he doesn’t report what happened.

Tim finally makes it to the hospital, but Raylan has already gone into surgery.

Pretending like he’s there on official business, Tim waits for him to come out. He’s in a lounge with a smug Boyd Crowder - who he really wants to shoot - and an older, bickering couple. He knows Arlo Givens from mug shots, and Raylan’s affectionately mentioned his Aunt Helen.

She looks more upset than either Boyd or Raylan’s father. After a few hours, Arlo insists on leaving. Helen argues, but Arlo wins.

“Doctors say he’ll be okay,” Tim offers, softly, as she gathers her things.

Helen looks at him sharply, clearly unused to sympathy from law enforcement. “Why do you care?” she asks, harshly.

Tim shakes his head, looks down. “I don’t,” he lies.

Crowder tries to get in to see Raylan when he wakes up, and Tim seriously enjoys when he’s able to prevent that.

“I’ll need to interview him before he speaks to anyone,” he says, trying to sound professional. “Can’t let you get your stories straight.”

“I am a concerned employer,” Crowder says, “And I do not appreciate the implication that there’s something criminal here.”

But then he stalks off, presumably to try to bribe a nurse or something.

Raylan is groggy and on drugs, when Tim is finally allowed to see him.

“Nice timing,” Raylan says, flat on a gurney. A sheet is pulled over his injury, and Tim’s glad. “You get your granddad’s stuff back?” he slurs.

Tim takes a seat in the visiting chair.

“Yeah,” he confirms.

“Give Loretta a spanking?”

“No,” Tim says, “but, I did throw her in a squad car real hard.”

Raylan smiles at him. “Thanks,” he says, softly.

“You’re the one that started the Battle of Harlan for her,” Tim says, since he still finds it baffling.

“That was Boyd,” Raylan admits. “He knew it’d come back to him, so he decided just to finish it.” He pauses. “Allegedly,” he adds. Then he scowls. “I am so high, this is not admissible.”

“You’re not under arrest,” Tim says. “But neither is he.”

“Course not,” Raylan says, with a grimace. He almost laughs, then winces.

Tim frowns. “You need more pain meds?”

Raylan shakes his head, but looks uncomfortable. Tim can’t resist. He reaches through the tangle of IV tubing and finds Raylan’s hand, squeezes it.

They’re alone in the hospital room, but this is still dangerous.

“Don’t be dumb,” Raylan says, but he doesn’t release Tim’s hand.

“You first,” Tim says. “I’m glad Loretta’s okay, but everything you did for her, that was dumb.”

Raylan shrugs with his eyebrows, in too much pain to use his shoulders.

“Kid deserves to get out of Harlan,” he says. “I know how hard that is.”

“Yeah,” Tim says, looking down at his fingers interlaced with Raylan’s. “Me, too.”

 

~Comments welcome~


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